When It's All in the Details

Sometimes, my heart needs reminders too. Reminders that the awesome things that we set up for our kids are nothing if we don't spend time with them in the midst of it. That we're still learning and growing, clumsy at this, awkward. Teaching and modeling and discipling on the run. Bouncing against each others' lives like so many rocks in a polisher.

7:11 comes, and I spend hours watching them bounce into and off of each other in an inflatable boxing ring. Really watching them. Watching to know when to count down from ten when they start to get exhausted. Watching to make sure that they keep each other on their feet.

But, also watching when they pair off carefully. When kids who are bigger or stronger or faster hold off a little to give the smaller ones an upper hand. When they brag on each other and encourage each other and laugh together about things that were done. When they pay attention to the tiny details of moments and force my scattered brain to pay attention to them too.

Details that whisper that they're getting older. Still little. Mature. Growing. But, mostly, details that whisper about the trust that we have built into this thing.

"They're your kids," K*r*n shrugs as I reach in and snag a stubborn boy by the ankle, pulling him half out of the inflatable until he agrees to wear the foam helmet, "you don't want them to get hurt."

It's said casually, carefully, and the layers of truth to it catch my heart in my chest.

My kids.

I've called them that for years, at least as many years as they have called me their leader. But, somewhere only recently, they have picked it up as a form of self reference.

"Your kids are…" "Your kid…" "Control your kids!"

My kids. Running wild through the building. Playing hide and seek in all the places where they are not supposed to be. Helping me to hunt each other down and shrugging gracefully into new boundaries. Coming to me when they are hurt or in trouble or bored or confused.

Walking on the tops of chairs. Playing deaf to guest leaders who try to stop them. Glaring at me when I send them to apologize and digging in their emotional heels. But, doing it anyways, because these are our kids, which makes them stubborn as rocks, but responsible to their very cores.

Responsible enough to apologize to a stranger. Responsible enough that I find a pair of best friends split up for the rest of the night. Separating from each other rather than being seen as an item when they are not.

So much more grown up than they used to be and yet still so much younger than they feel.

"You don't want them to get hurt."

 Physically, I 'll keep them safe, sure. Watch for the moment just before the boxing ring stops being fun. Insist that they wear the helmet. Hold ear rings and glasses and hats and phones until my hands are overflowing. Offer bandaids and examine bruises. Let them test their bodies and find their limits.

J*n*h (LJ) and C*lt*n ask if I'll leave them in the boxing ring for "a long time," past the exhaustion point where I normally pull them out. And, then, they aren't quite sure what to do with themselves with the protective limit removed, J*n*h finally flopping down and glancing at me with a look that suggests I just kicked a puppy. "Aren't you going to do that thing where you count down?"

There is a trust here. Trust that, while they're still learning their growing bodies, I will stop them before they go to far.

But, there is also J*n*h D, the blond head that you can just see in the backgrounds of some of the Faceb**k photos, leaned up against the bounce house beside me, talking. Reporting in on each of my kids. Where they are. Who they're with. Whenever there might be a situation that requires an extra set of eyes.

Not to be a narc, but because it is in their natures to look out for one another. To protect each other. Even when it means protecting each other from each other.

"So and so is being mean to me again," one of the girls comes up to complain, and his eyes flash fire.

"Like at camp?" He fixes me with a look that insists that I go and fix it. Fix it now, before someone gets hurt. Not because he can't or he won't, but because these are my kids, and, so much like my kiddos at school, they assume that keeping them safe is written into my DNA.

Assume that, as they are navigating these floods of hormones and this growing understanding, I will stop them before they go to far. Assume that I (we) don't want them to get hurt.

The intricate N*rf gun courses and the hours that we spent taping and stapling and preparing for their arrival mean nothing unless we care for them at least as gently as they care for one another.

So we do, or we try to. And, I'm never quite sure that we get it all right. That with this many kids running around it is even possible to get it all right for five minutes, let alone four hours. But, so long as these are our kids, we are certainly going to try.

Eternity in the Middle

Sunday evening. Intersect.

Spring break and lingering sunshine draw the kids outside like a magnet, where they make up games with a frisbee and a foam ball; chase each other in circles up and down hills, around the outside of this little building across the parking lot from where they served this morning.

These are our Sunday school teachers. Our middle school leaders. Our Student Owners.

Willing hands move chairs and football tables and TV stands. Meet early to plan things that they haven't told us about yet. And, it might be almost cheating how easy this is, how simply they fall into these patterns and this community.

Beyond us; despite us; alongside us.

Working together to find eternity in the middle.

The youth pastor comes panting up the stairs to where we stand greeting the few who trickle in on this quiet Sunday, the entrance a passthrough, rather than the sticking point that it is when winter reigns. He is smiling, exaggerated, a thousand times removed from his moments earlier frustration of setting up sound and slides.

"The game already started! It just happened! Let's go play!"

Play link tag in this softness just before the sunset. Come inside to kids who MC and lead music in this echoing space that they have filled with light. Who laugh often and easily.

Listen to a lesson in this careful arc that they have set up. Because, no one minds the switch to chairs so long as they can see each other. So long as they're not doing this thing alone.

Team building activity by small group. Split, as always, by the months we were born.

Smiles that dance across faces, light eyes, as they enjoy these things, these moments that they have created.

A game played simply because they felt like it. Spontaneous clapping in a church that often can't hold a rhythm to save its life. Bodies curled cross legged on the floor to sing By Your Side, as a tangible reminder of our smallness and the bigness that holds us. Voices that sound a dozen times stronger than nineteen students and four leaders.

Collectively certain that this is right and this is good.

Silly commercials instead of breakout questions. Nonsense and holiness wrapped into one as we practice a little of the easy presence of grace.

Because, tonight, with these kids, we can.

We can step back and breathe and enjoy these people. Enjoy the smallness of this group.

Find Christ here.

Not because they are perfect - and certainly not because we are. It's spring and it's Lent and we're gearing up for Haiti and there are a dozen tensions in their eyes that we don't begin to name.

They are tired and ready for a break.

But, they are present. They are here, and they are pouring themselves into this.

They come, and they create space.

Create community.

Breathe grace.

And, it's dark when we leave, when they scatter to homes and coffee shops and wherever they go when they are not here. Still warm, with a wind that promises to bring in blue skies for tomorrow.

An hour and a half.

1.5 out of the 168 before we gather together like this again.

But, maybe, just maybe, we managed to find eternity in the middle. And, maybe, as we go out to be the church, rather than just be at it; maybe we'll find it again.

Lenten Musings

"Do you guys celebrate Lent?"

A new sixth grader asks the question as we sit down on the cool concrete of the floor, the youth pastor just ready to begin his talk.

Yes. No. Sort of. Not really.

We're not a liturgical church, and the days on the calendar mean little beyond the occasional need to set up more chairs, or the vague chance of dresses and ties. But, we do this time of year. 

Lent. Spring.

This something that eats at their bones and stirs in their souls until it begins to feel like we've been here, done this before.

Growing, learning, settling into the cusp of summer and the changes that it brings.

Talking about Haiti over the heads of little people about to begin music or while cutting plastic and denim to be turned into shoes. Pulling cardboard from the recycling bin and scrawling over it with the week's verse - word by word copying out truth.

Normalizing the transition to middle school and running, running, running when the crazy-makers don't have it in their bodies to stay still.

Mixing moments and eye rolls and smiles and exasperation.

"With us and responsible." "With us and responsible." 

"Responsible." "Responsible." "Responsible." Until the kids are saying it too. Leaning a little closer. Fidgeting a little more. Growing like weeds and not sure what to do with themselves.

Because, we're spinning our wheels in this mud, slowly making traction, stick by careful stick. And, I have to remind myself to breathe a little deeper. Slow down. Don't rush the end of the story. Remember.

Remember that we've done this before. This bit where they glue themselves to my elbows and my knees. Where M*t** reappears from his spot at the front and starts to sit near us again. Where they slip in and out of my space, just wanting to say something. Show a magic trick. Take a picture. Offer a cookie. Be seen.

Remember that this is Lent.

This, with my phone in the pocket of a sixth grade girl, while some of the seventh grade boys pass around the badge part of my name tag, the lanyard around someone else's neck. The clapping hand shakes with Ch*d that wouldn't happen any other time of year. And, the slightly discombobulated feel that we ought to be moving faster than we are.

Like we were hurtling forwards and someone hit the breaks.

Stop. Breathe. 

Look back on old behaviors and new growth.

See how far they've come.

Watch the hands slip into the air in worship. Stay with this one who still can't stand the intensity of feeling that it brings to the room. Let him be uncomfortable. Let him grow.

Let them count the number of camps that they have left. The number that they have already seen.

Let them slip away, back into a room that they haven't been in for months. Let them fall into habits that only come back when it feels like their world is not quite right. Let them scramble a little in this mud. Together.

Together, even when I don't quite catch the cues. When the boys circle up for the game and then send an envoy in confusion, because, where am I? Why do I already have this circle that has formed around me? Didn't I know to come find them?

When we release the girls too early or let them get too loud. When the kids aren't the only ones spinning their wheels, fighting for traction.

When we celebrate Lent because we need to remember.

Remember that a King is coming. A sacrifice. To do what we could never do for ourselves.

Remember that today is never the end of the story.

Remember

It's the only clear photo that I have of today. This one that a fifth grader took. Tired eyes. Pulling a face at her as soon as she pointed the phone in my direction. Things scattered everywhere, as if a tornado has struck in our "girl cave" under the stairs. Pants too short over my ankles.

One girl, maybe two still hurriedly drawing out today's books of the Bible. No one in frame doing anything particularly churchy.

And, yet.

K*r*ss* is behind me, carefully winding up a top that first came from Honduras. K*d*n is belly down, flipping through pictures of twelve-year-old me in Nicaragua. Laughing. Sorting them into two piles. Photos that I am in, and photos that I am not.

Because, this is how we do church.

This is how we do church when it's daylight savings time. When they don't have a worship leader. And, when the story presenters are different than normal.

My girls jump up front with me to help the 4th and 5th grade director lead ad hoc music while we wait for the videos to load. Jesus Loves Me and Amazing Grace and Father Abraham. Words but no music while fifty little voices belt out Like a Lion.

"Let love explode and bring the dead to life

A love so bold

To see a revolution somehow"

As if, on this day of celebration, with its balloons and cookies and brightly printed banners, we are being quietly reminded of the messiness of this thing that we are doing. The rawness of humanity pressing up against the Divine.

The squirrely one slips her hand into mine as we sing. Presses down on my shoulders while we pray. Hears a dozen reprimands and jumps on just as many chances to serve.

They whisper during story and try to remember where on earth Hebrews is hiding in their Bibles. We draw and look and pictures, and we run, skip, spin, and army crawl with a well worn set of relay cards. They play Fl*ppy Bird and mancala on my phone.

Too loud in the hallway. Climbing the outside of the stairwell. Boy in this girls' group because he knows us better. Messy in every way.

Holy.

Holy when their voices ring out. 

Holy when K*d*n mentions their girl cave and when K*yl* asks if we're going "upstairs."

Holy when we build into them with these tactile sensations that their bodies are going to remember long after their minds have forgotten the specifics of todays lesson.

Holy when my seventh graders are back in another season of "remember."

"Remember when you used to bring us donuts?"

"Remember how you used to chase me?"

"Remember when I was a baby?"

"Remember when…?"

Remember.

Remind me. Remind me that Jesus makes me enough. Remind me of the sanctity of this place where we come to love God and love each other. Remind me that nothing else matters.

So we remind and we remember. I chase this one and catch him and chase him again. Lead this group out to the foyer to get cookies. Put the balloons back when that one can't quite figure out how too fix what he undid.

Hand out gum. Let them look at pictures.

Play a game and roll my eyes at a dozen antics. Shake my head when they need to stop. And, laugh often. (The middle schoolers are convinced that I'm always happy and I always laugh.)

Lend out my name tag and let them store their stuff in my bag.

Sit in breakout groups where we talk about authority and their favorite kind of ice cream. Let them push me into a garbage can as payback for the game. Run up stairs and around corners and wear half a dozen different names as we try to squeeze everything that we can out of these brief moments, feeling the quiet press of time.

Never enough hands or lips or ears or moments to communicate the bigness of this God. Never enough chances to whisper truth or shout it across this room that is throbbing with life and hurt and mess and beauty.

And, yet, somehow, more than what we need.

Not, because of us, but because of Him. Because of Grace that is sufficient. Because of Strength that is made perfect in weakness.

Because of this God. This Holy that shows up in voices of thirty-three high schoolers and a handful of leaders as they sing in the basement of a building that is probably older than any of the kids. That shows up even when the youth pastor is gone for the week. Even when we're still trying to figure out which clocks are wrong and which ones are right.

That sends six pizzas in the front door just as we are trying to determine if we have any snacks for the kids. Not because they need it. No one here is starving. But, because, sometimes I think that He likes to remind us how much He works outside of our plans.

How He shows up in the loose and the messy and the not quite finished around the edges.

How things don't have to look "right" in order to be holy.

Because, my seventh graders aren't the only ones who need to remember.

Doing Life

High school retreat.

So close on the tail of middle school camp that my head spins a little trying to hold on to the differences. Trying to remember how this works. This thing that we have done so many times before. And, yet, never quite like this.

Party. Adventure. #change.

The last three years have been a whirlwind of differences and similarities. But, nothing quite like this.

This one feels a little more like an extra long cluster than anything else. Like we showed up in someone's living room or basement on a Wednesday night and simply forgot to leave, so some kind person arranged to find us food and beds alongside half a dozen other clusters who similarly forgot to pack it up and go home.

We sit by clusters on the bus, at snack, at chapel, and talent show, and all camp game. Sleep in cabins divided by cluster. Break out by cluster for small group discussions and for prayer.

Even when my girls organize to combine with some of the boys for the talent show, it's two entire clusters that they meld.

They're goofy, and we have fun all weekend. Play games that involve giant sling shots, bowling balls used to decimate glass vases, or massive amounts of toilet paper. Go on hikes. Roast marshmallows. Play capture the flag. Come back to the cabin to find them buried under sleeping bags on the porch, laughing and dissecting song lyrics.

There is a giant relay race, and they jump in fiercely competitive, sweating and breathless from running faster, jumping up and down more quickly, more often, working to make up the advantage held by the larger teams.

Because, they really do work together well, this most drama free group of high school girls that we could ever hope to have.

They casually reference reading Amos or Chronicles or Lamentations, and our college freshman who is back to play on the worship team calls them out on it. Tells them how awesome they are. How cool it is to be in high school and be reading chronologically through the entire Bible.

It is cool. And, it's crazy.

Crazy that they think of this as normal. Crazy the kinds of things that they ask questions about. Crazy the kinds of things that they have answers for.

Somehow, this is normal in their world, this kind of time and space where nothing is too sacred to ask, where dialogue is valuable, where there is enough going on in their own heads and hearts that it doesn't matter what the speaker says. Doesn't matter when nearly every word of it whooshes past without making contact.

"We could just ask Jessica questions," one of them offers up when it looks like we're going to have more cabin time than we know what to do with, "and listen to her talk about the Bible for hours."

Instead, they curl up on the top bunks and just talk. Answer each other's questions, sometimes with the same words that we have used to answer them in the past.

Questions that, mainly, revolve around loving people.

How do we love? Who do we love? Are there limits? What does it look like to love well? What do we do when life and people are hard and messy and hearts and minds seem to be tugging us every direction at once?

They pray for us. We pray for them. They pray for each other.

Nothing goes quite the way that it was planned, and, even as the weekend passes, we talk about the differences, about the things that are and the things that aren't, about the strangeness of proposing to know what it is that God has in store.

And, I wonder if the leaders feel it more than the kids, the strange disconnect between the things that are happening around us - the words that are coming out of the speaker's mouth, the falling apart of anything that we had thought to put down on paper or carefully diagram in chalk - and the strangely settled familiarity of what is happening within us. Within them.

We worry about things that they were too tired or too distracted to hear, and they echo back to us that God is great, God is gracious, God is glorious, and God is good.

They laugh and tease and spend the bus rides making brothers do push ups in penance for pranks pulled and discussing the finer points of theology.

They let the boys load the bus and unload it. Let them deliver the luggage to our cabins on Friday night and pick it up again on Sunday morning. 

They stand back and grit their teeth and let the guys begin to sort through these realities of what it means to serve. They spend the weekend looking for a way to show gratitude without playing into gender stereotypes. 

And, being my girls, they solve their problem on the way home by simply jumping into the luggage compartments and beginning to pass out suitcases and sleeping bags before anyone can think to tell them not to. 

Because, service goes both ways.

Because, there aren't any clear cut answers to any of this. No dark lines or scheduled epiphanies. Just the thick, heavy flakes that send us home on Sunday morning and blanket the ground behind us in white. Just the quiet peace of protection in the midst of a storm.

Just a whole bunch of people who happen to be doing life together.

SnowBlast 2014

11 girls. 6th graders. A cabin full of wild, squealing, giggling, whirlwinds. The one thing I used to swear as a middle schooler I would never lead.

But, I love them.

These goofy dance parties and children rolling on the floor like puppies. These explorations out into the bitter cold. The ones who shove me down snow hills and the ones who sit on top of me to get closer to the fire.

The stories that we read after lights out to put them to sleep and the constant flow of words onto the mirror.

Because, we put words and color everywhere. Posters on the walls and doors. Markers for the mirror. Notes and quotes and verses every morning. 

Notebooks and colored pens and pencils for chapel time - white pages that they fill with bullet pointed lists and sketched out bits of stories that the speaker tells. He fully has their attention, and they write down more than I have ever seen, capturing thoughts and bits of truth.

We give them ten minutes of quiet time to draw or journal. A stack of construction paper to make cards for the injured youth pastor. Markers and scissors and glue. Sharpies. Colored pencils. Pens.

Triangles that they fill with thought after thought. Young voices leading each other through their favorite tool. "Tell me a thought, a truth you heard the speaker say." "If we really, truly believed that…"

They speak the truths to one another over and over and over again, and, as the weekend goes on, they begin to trust the girls more, begin to trust us more. Begin to find the real words to explain what it is that they mean, what it is that they're thinking and feeling.

BEAUTIFUL & MERCIFUL

PROTECTED

DEPENDENT

They wrap up the triangles with carefully considered words, throwing out a half dozen ideas each time before finally settling on these ones.

They've seen the truths, heard them, spoken them, written them. Bowled us over with their honesty and depth of insight. With the respect that they show as eleven wildly different girls function as a unit.

With the respect that they show to the other kids at camp. To the boys who come knocking on the door for this reason or that one. To the leader who has to disappear from time to time to MC. To the older girls who had claim over me "first."

"I don't feel special anymore," one of mine laughs at me as we stand by the fire eating cookies, waiting for a sixth grade boy to report back that the youth pastor's cards have been delivered, "my counselor knows everyone."

She give a fake pout and goes back to eating her cookie, no more truly perturbed than the other girls who grin and laugh and point their fingers as they accuse me of "making purple" by sitting to talk with middle school boys.

"Your kid…" One of them prefaces her stories about a seventh grade boy, as if I somehow have ownership - responsibility - over this child. 

"Your kid said…" 

"Where's your kid?"

"Did you see M*t**?"

This one who asks to play king of the mountain of the highest mound of dirt and snow we can find. Who laughs as we go skidding down the bottom. Who shows me his smashed finger dozens of times and jumps to my defense when some of my other kids white wash me with snow.

Sixth grade boys who check in when their counselor is missing and come find me for help with a bracelet. Eighth grade boys who take selfies on my phone and set alarms for odd hours of the night/morning. Seventh graders who feel like they have known me forever.

We spend long chunks of free time just sitting by the fire talking, long hours on the bus. Play Mad L*bs and Fl*ppy Bird and laugh at the antics of their caffeinated selves.

Head down to the frozen stream to poke at ice with sticks and rocks, scramble through trees, explore, even though they know every inch of this place already. To cement it in their minds, in case, next winter, we don't come back.

We look up pictures of the camp we are going to this summer and watch videos from winter camp last year. Scatter for a dodgeball tournament and then make our slow way back to the fire.

"Jessica!" my girls come running in at intervals, breathless with cold and the effort of not smiling as they tell me some story about why I need to solve an emergency in the cabin right this instant. So, I run out, back to our cabin that smells like wet sock and fart and perfume, and they jump out to scream at me or to pelt me with pillows until no one can see past long hair and laughter.

"We're all family here," I told one of the newer boys on the bus ride up. "A very lopsided, dysfunctional family, but family. And, we treat each other with respect."

It was a correction at the time, a gentle way to redirect behavior. But, this weekend, it seems to be working hard to prove itself true.

Family that giggles and laughs and pulls into a tight circle to eat chocolate marshmallows and talk about God things. That gets wet and cold and bruised and dances awkwardly when they play our songs. Sleeps in cabins that are too hot or too cold but rarely just right.

That watches out for one another and makes sure that everyone feels as safe as they possibly can.

Family that bickers a little when they get tired and close to home, but that still reacts to each other with all of the respect and patience that they can muster. Family that does competitive well but loses poorly.

Family that has snowball fights. That slips on ice and hauls each other back to their feet. That laughs about farts and poop and people's reactions to getting shocked. That has weird rules and expectations that kind of, sort of, mostly work.

That is as radically different from each other as we are the same. 

Confident. Insecure. Loud. Quiet. Independent. Constantly surrounded by others. Passionate singers. Totally unmoved by corporate music. Playful. Serious. Athletic. Clumsy. Nearly every end of every spectrum we can find.

It isn't perfect. But, they don't expect it to be.

Instead, we take our imperfect mess, and we wrap it up in sugar and bacon and way too many Monst*rs and shake it all up with a knot of middle school hormones and emotions.

And, because God is faithful, we can somehow step back and call it good.

Today

Today, the fifth graders are restless and antsy, asking for a chance to "get rid of some wiggles" before we start.

Today, they don't want to stop running, so we don't. We pull out the relay cards, and the five of them race against the clock. Faster. Faster. Faster still. Flipping through the pages of a well used Bible. Cheering each other on. Putting together verse after verse.

All the way up until the parents arrive, we run relays.

Relays because they need to move. Relays because they need to succeed at something. Relays because they need to work as a team. Relays because I need to change it up. Because we're only half way through the morning, and I'm tired of saying "no thank you" and correcting behavior.

Because we have tight boundaries this year. Because they are coatless and shoeless and it is still cold outside. Because relays have always been one of my go to games for elementary Sunday school. But, mostly, because, even with this most structured group that I have ever run, I need the chance to remember that they are wonderful, even when their insides are too full to sit still.

This one is back after long weeks of absence. That one squirms as she tells me about an animal that she gets to dissect, conflictingly excited over the prospect and sad that it had to die. 

This one is visibly unsettled by the number of no's and redirects from a teacher whose most common answer is "yes," and that one will patiently throw her whole self into anything that we do.

The other one wears that lost but feisty look of re-entry shock, and part of me wants to sit her down and give her information, give her tools to come back from Belize well. But, she wouldn't hear me. Not today. Not right now.

So, today, we run.

Today, we remember a faithful God, because these relay cards were never "supposed" to be for them in the first place.

They were for middle school. Are for middle school. Where a hundred kids divide up into teams and run, skip, crab walk, army crawl, and roll across the slick new floors to put together the same verses about fear and courage and a good and faithful God.

Where leaders cheer on kids and work together with kids, and the ones who win are rewarded with a pack of socks to donate to the Union Gospel Mission.

Today they jump up to help me explain the game and jump into it with enthusiasm, even when I worry that it is too young for them. And, the shiny new floor echoes with the sound of a dozen verses. Today a seventh grader rebuffs an introduction with, "I know her [Jessica]. She was my sub. Well, not really. She was my…something. She's cool. Be nice to her."

Today they make sure I know when they get there and when they leave. We talk and dodge balls and watch a video that rips some of them wide open.

They sit around me, three of them, each on their own side, and, today, like every day, I can't help but love these kids.

Normal Time

There are patterns to this thing, layers of constant action and reaction that feel both brand new and incredibly familiar.

There are Sundays like today where I could take what I wrote exactly three years ago and fill it in like one of the Mad L*bs that the kids love using on my phone.

As we were getting ready to take off on our ... game for the day, [pool noodle line hockey], a few of my more active kids were ... bouncing [up and down on the rubber cones that they had shoved their feet into like stilts]. They were excited. People were finally all back from vacation. And, we [had a brand new, slippery, shiny floor], which threw them even more off kilter.

"MH," I caught his attention first…

…rolling my eyes and catching his gaze for the thousandth time already this morning, like we're trying to make up for all of the weeks that he missed on vacation.

He's full of it this morning, goofy and right in the middle of things, causing general, sparkly eyed mayhem wherever he turns; no longer December's too quiet, ghost of a child who flitted along the edges like he was trying to be invisible.

It's January. 

Epiphany is past. Christmas is over. 

And, they breathe a little different during normal time.

The fifth graders settle in to draw while one of the girls tells us stories about her ministry trip to Belize and the people that she met while she was there. They braid each other's hair during the lesson and use up extra energy in goofy fights over pens and glue sticks, filling up a page in their notebooks with words that describe their identity in Christ.

We talk about Hosea and Joel and about how Jesus bought back humanity after we had gotten ourselves into trouble, the same way that Hosea bought back Gomer. Something about the bugs in the book of Joel gets us totally side tracked, but we make it back to focused. 

Sort of.

There are Mad L*bs on my phone while we wait for parents, fourth grade boys who come over to show me masks that they made, and more talk about trips out of the country, this time with a second hour leader who was on the same Nicaragua team as my twelve year old self.

Nicaragua. Kenya. Belize. The US.

One of my seventh graders comes up while we're talking, and we begin the transition into second hour. Some time with him and a quick promise to be over in middle school soon.

Two eighth graders and a freshman who I pass in the hallway with a sarcastic comment about "an awful lot of trouble all standing in one spot."
"Actually," one of them grins back at me, "we'll follow you."

So, we walk across the church with smiles and eye rolls and teasing, talking about all of the times and things that they have done to my poor little phone, which is somehow just another extension of my self to these kids. Not my property so much as it is a part of me. A set of memories and events that they can tangibly hold on to.

They fall back to talk with a couple of sophomores, and I stop for a pair of seventh grade girls.

The leaders' meeting is started already, but I never quite make it in, caught up, for today, in the January-ness of my kids. The smiles and the words that come so easily this week. The blatant way that they ask for more time.

The seventh grader who I finally step across the threshold with as he spins around and looks at the new floor with wide eyed shock.
"I don't like it. It looks like it will hurt."

The pair of them who pull me off to find a space where they know that we won't be interrupted.

More talk about Belize, this time with the oldest sister, and we are fully into the swing of things.

Game. Video. Music. More video. Breakouts.

And, it's less talking now and more doing. More hauling them to their feet every time that we need to stand. Explaining the game until the girls understand. Connecting a new sixth grader with friends he knows from school. Leaving the side where I am "supposed to be" to check on the boys, who are still vaguely confounded by the idea that splitting the game by gender means Jessica being on the other side.

Laughing with them at the difference between the girls, who are actually playing the game, and the boys, who are largely just beating on each other with pool noodles in a semi organized rotation. Nodding as the ones I would have expected mention their distaste.

Too violent. No rules. No structure that they can follow.

It's noisy in here with the new floor. Bright. Loud. Slippery. Echoey. New colors on the walls. And, they have a little of that shocked and dazed appearance like we have just ripped the rug out from under them.

But, they gather back together for the video and music. Quiet. Focused.

And, the echo means that they can hear each other sing. Not individual voices, but the mass of them. From where we stand in the middle, one of the girls whispers how odd it is to be able to hear the boys. Hear them and see them.

See my wiggly ones standing still. See the talkative ones being quiet. Watch as two boys near the front, each with their own reason for less developed inhibitions, throw their hands up into the air in worship. Watch as the friend standing next to them glances around, smiles, and does the same.

Watch as it spreads. As we end worship with dozens of hands in the air. 100+ voices echoing, "For the sake of the world, burn like a fire in me."

It's January.

Normal time.

In it's own strange way, this is their normal.

Why are there so many boys?

"Are you a girls' leader?"

The eighth grader who has been talking to me in a constant stream of words for the last fifteen minutes suddenly stops to peer at my name tag, as if he has come across some sort of bizarrely disturbing fact. 

"Yes."

"Then, why are there always so many boys around?"

He twists his face into a comically exaggerated question, first glancing at the few who are clustered near me on the edge of the stage and then out at several more playing dodgeball. Picking "mine" out of the crowd with a laser like accuracy.

We've talked about everything from his current school to his elementary school to the fact that my sister is getting married, but this is the one thing that befuddles him. Why are there always so many boys around?

And, I almost turn the question back around on him, the eighth grader who is standing in front of me because his seat beside me was taken over by a sixth grade boy when he left to get a drink of water. "I don't know; why are there always so many boys around?"

But, I know that he'll tell me that his camp counselor isn't here, so he "doesn't have anyone else to talk to."

We've talked about it already.

As if the gym isn't swarming with other leaders who would be more than happy to talk to him. It's the Sunday after Christmas. We're across the parking lot from where we normally meet. We have maybe a third of the students - but almost all of the leaders. Better ratios than anywhere outside of camp or discipleship groups.

There are plenty of people to talk to. But, not the one or two that he tends to follow around like an eager puppy.

"Because, I've known a lot of these kids since they were in elementary school."

"Oh." He nods.

And, the conversation being with this particular kid, it continues with more words than I would be likely to get out of some of the boys in a month, but the gist of it is that there are always kids around. That today, even outside of their normal space, is no different.

Boys who call my name just so that we can pull faces at each other from across the gym. Who peg me with dodge balls, borrow my phone, and beg me for gum before the lesson. Who sit almost quietly for most of the talk.

Girls who sit to talk about friends and life, help me clean up at the end of the morning, and challenge the boys to play them one on one at the basketball hoop. Who don't mind my pitiful attempts to hit a giant volleyball and who long ago quit asking why there are always boys - if they ever thought to ask in the first place.

Kids who simply happen to share the fact that, at some point, they hung around me for long enough to decide that they thought it was a positive experience.

Kids who play sports like breathing. Kids who avoid them like the plague. Kids who always have the right answer and kids who just say whatever words pop into their heads. Top of the middle school heap. Bottom of the totem pole. And, everything in between.

The ones who wiggle and squirm and talk and run wild.

The ones who text me mid week. The ones who tag me on Inst*gram. The ones who keep me up at night praying for them. And, the ones who hone in like a missile whenever they see me.

These are "mine," this odd little combination of people who keep me always on my toes, by doing things like this, when ones who don't normally have my password get their hands on my unlocked phone.

(Yes. My sisters really are just as … unique as my kids. The conversation only stops where it does because he passed my phone back to me ding the lesson.)

(Yes. My sisters really are just as unique as my kids. The conversation only stops where it does because he passed my phone back to me during the lesson. The kids aren't the only ones who keep me well versed in the art of strangeness.)

Truth in Technicolor

Let no one ever tell you that sixth grade girls are not capable of doing work.

Each week that we have breakout groups, they thunder up the stairs with a herd of seventh and eight graders and slip off into our empty classrooms. Half on one side to talk through the discussion questions. Half on the other to work on a "triangle."

The more linear ones like the numbered questions. A checklist that tells them when they are done. A chance to give the 'right' answer. They thrive on it.

Others prefer to tell us what they already know, what they're already thinking and feeling and deciding to do. Prefer to flop belly down in a messy circle on the floor and jostle for markers.

"I get to write first."

"I'll write second."

"Can I write the big word?"

"I want to do the shwoop!" 

The last one makes a sound effect and demonstrates the underlining or decoration that is always the final step, the cementing of the big idea.

"Tell me a thought." We start at the top of the triangle, although they're well practiced enough now for the next breakout group to start somewhere else. "One true thing that you heard [the speaker] say today."

The first color of marker goes up near the top of the triangle, just under where I have written the word "THOUGHT." 

Careful sixth grader spelling as they retell truth with their own lips. Sort out what was illustration and what was real. Find the pieces that are solid enough to believe in. And, there is always more than one. More than one thing that they have heard. More than one thing that they want to talk about.

"Okay, so, if you really, truly believed that X, how do you think that that might make you feel?"

Private. Frustrated. Incredible. Confused. Thoughtful. Empowered.

Sometimes they know the word that they are searching for. Other times they only know the feel of it, turning to the rest of us, trying to explain, waiting until someone provides the elusive syllables.

Whatever they come up with, it goes inside the triangle, because, this is the part where, perhaps, they are the most honest, where they do the most work to share what it is that they are thinking. Feeling. The way that this truth feels in their gut.

This is the part where there are no 'right' answers. The part where we normalize this idea that faith can mix with doubt. Pain can mix with joy. Grace can mix with brokenness.

"So," the next step comes, "if you really, truly believed X and that made you feel A, B, and C, how do you think you would act? What would that look like?"

Sometimes they know. Sometimes we have to talk it through.

But, it seems to make more sense this way, when they've given themselves that why behind the action. If I believe this and feel any number of these ways, then I do this. Read my Bible. Talk to Jesus. Talk to  people. Ask questions. Care about others. Tell somebody. Live in awe. Live humbly.

Orthopraxy out of orthodoxy.

Heart. Soul. Mind. Strength.

And, then, a new color and a new writer, and we start again with another truth. Top right. Center. Bottom left.

Two truths, maybe three total, if they have a lot to say. Until the clock starts to run down.

"Alright," the notebook goes to the next set of hands, ready and waiting with a thick, bright marker, "what's the big word that [she's] writing today? What is all of this about?"

Forgiveness. Prayer. Gifts. Jesus.

This step has nothing to do with CBT and everything to do with the way that we draw 'triangles.' This is the wrap up that makes them feel like it's finished. Like they've accomplished something. The summary that they look for when they flip back through the book.

This is the part that feels a little like art.

They give the answer, and we fumble around a little bit, until everyone is certain of the spelling. Until it criss crosses our page in giant letters. The big picture behind all of these careful stacks of syllables.

Someone else decorates the 'big word' with squiggles, or dashes, or bold underline; and the markers go back into my bag, the rainbow of colors that have captured their thoughts. One of the girls prays. We hand out any paperwork that needs to go home. And, they scatter to the wind.

10-15 minutes. A notebook. Some markers. And, a slightly crooked triangle.

This is how we draw theology.

Perfect

 

Snow falls on Friday morning.

Fast. Heavy. Quiet. Wet and warm as only desert snow can be. Too late in the day to mean a change in school. Too vulnerable to the wind that comes after to stay.

By the time I drive home, it is almost melted. Almost. But, not quite.

Because, there is a patch on the mountain that stays brilliantly white. One spot.

The place where last summer's fire burned through.

There is a scar on the mountain, a burnt place that might heal when the spring brings rain and that brief flash of green that paints the desert in the early parts of the year, as if even nature can't wait any longer to shake off the last vestiges of winter.

For now, though, it is black. A few minutes of heat and rain that still show themselves half a year later.

Every time that I see it, I pray. Pray for Haiti. Pray for churches and programs and children. Pray for the kids that we took this year. Pray for the kids that we have taken in the past.

Pray for the places where these trips have marked them, the memories that they hold as proof that God is good even when times are hard.

And, it is always a little bit sad, knowing that something was destroyed in the process, that we stood beside them and allowed their hearts to be broken. But, the memory of it takes my breath away. As if my protective side and my whatever-the-other-side-is are arguing with each other. Arguing over how best to do life with these kids.

And, I am reminded of the oxymoron of grace.

Because, today, the scar is white.

Today, the burnt spot is the place where the borrowed purity of snow shows through with the greatest definition. Today, the broken place most clearly demonstrates His grace.

As it does every day.

When it's almost Christmas and they are antsy with the thought of it. When it is Lent and they are growing faster than any of us can keep up with. When we're in the midst of the ebb and flow of normal time.

Every day, His grace shines through the most clearly when it is allowed to cover our brokenness.

But he said to me, 
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
2 Corinthians 12:9a